This sad holiday season we didn’t have the brewing capacity to make our favorite seasonal brew, the widely feared BrownShugga’ Ale. You see we had a couple of really good years (thank you very much) and so heading into this season while we are awaiting the January delivery of a new brewhouse we are jammin’ along brewing 80 barrels of IPA and PILS and such every 3 hours. A couple of months back we realized that since we can only brew a mere 60 barrels of Shugga’ every 5 hours, that we were seriously screwed. For every case of Shugga’ brewed, we’d short 3 cases of our favorite daily beers. It’s a drag. This year, we brewed something that we think is also cool and brews more like our daily brews. The new brewhouse will help insure this kind of failure never happens again. It’s a mess that we can not brew our BrownShugga’ this year and we suck for not doing it. There is nothing cool about screwing this up this badly and we know it. Maybe we can sue our own sorry selves. There is no joy in our hearts this holiday and the best we can hope for is a quick and merciful end. F*@& us. This totally blows. Whatever. We freaking munch moldy donkey butt and we just want it to be all over... So this substitute beer is a ‘Cereal Medley’ of Barley, Rye, Wheat, and Oats…. Full of complexishness from the 4 grains, and weighing in at 7.85% abv, Then joyously dry-hopped for that big aroma and resinous hop flavor.

Lagunitas has been consistently good to excellent in its lineup of offerings (in my experience; the numbers say a median rating of 4.2 from 21 ratings including this one, with only two scoring below 3.8 and the lowest being 3.3). For some reason I was apprehensive about this one but it turns out to be quite enjoyable. The initial nose triggered "barley wine" thoughts, the appearance that of a slightly hazy Stone-ish IPA, with lots of rising carbonation bubbles. Flavor that of a slightly mild IPA with lots of near-butterscotch sticky sweetness thrown in (which is fine by me in this case, since while it’s lots of sticky sweetness, it’s not too much, although almost too much). Finishes very smooth. Almost sessiony if not so boozy. to be exact I’d rate this 8.7/10 or 4.35 on a 5-point scale.

Poured from a one quart bottle into a pint glass to drink. The beer had a light, clear dark gold color with a slight touch of amber and a modest foamy white head with shorter retention, but good cling and lacing. The aroma featured a blend of grainy and earthy hops with sugar, spice, and a bit of pine. Its taste was pretty sweet with notes of sugar, molasses, light fruit, and a touch of bitter grainyness at the swallow. The beer had a very lively mouthfeel and was well carbonated with a good fizz and kick, and was somewhat drying in nature.

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